"I must not lose you," he cried, drunk with her beauty and doubly
drunk with her sensuous idealism. "May I not even kiss you?"

"Well, if you like--once, just here," she said, pointing where white
melted to faint rose.

Mastered, he followed her down the long stairs; but when they passed
into the open air he felt he had lost her irrevocably. The river was
now tinted with setting light, the balustrade of Waterloo Bridge
showed like lace-work, the glass roofing of Charing Cross station was
golden, and each spire distinct upon the moveless blue. The splashing
of a steamer sounded strange upon his ears. The "Citizen" passed! She
was crowded with human beings, all apparently alike. Then the eye
separated them. An old lady making her way down the deck, a young man
in gray clothes, a red soldier leaning over the rail, the captain
walking on the bridge.

Mike called a hansom; a few seconds more and she would pass from him
into London. He saw the horse's hooves, saw the cab appear and
disappear behind other cabs; it turned a corner, and she was gone.




CHAPTER III


Seven hours had elapsed since he had parted from Lily Young, and
these seven hours he had spent in restaurants and music-halls,